Campaigns and channels

Each visit receives a source, a medium, a campaign and a channel. They come from the parameters of the landing address, failing that from the referring site, failing that “direct”. The views carry them on every page view and every visit.

The parameters read

Parameters	What they provide
utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_term, utm_content	the five classic parameters
utm_id, utm_source_platform, utm_creative_format, utm_marketing_tactic	the GA4 ones
ref, source	read as utm_source when there is none

They are read in the query of the address and also in its fragment (#utm_source=…), where some e-mailing tools write them. Then the query is removed from the stored address.

Click identifiers

Ad platforms add their click identifier to links. eodia analytics keeps only its type, never its value, which would make it possible to match the visit with the ad platform’s data. Without UTM parameters, a paid click identifier provides the source and the medium:

Identifier	Source	Medium
gclid, gbraid, wbraid	google	cpc
dclid	google	display
msclkid	bing	cpc
fbclid	facebook	— (also added to non-paid links)
ttclid	tiktok	cpc
li_fat_id	linkedin	cpc
twclid	twitter	cpc
epik	pinterest	cpc

Normalization

On receipt:

• the source and the medium are lowercased, trimmed and decoded (+ and %20 become spaces); the campaign, term and content keep their case;
• aliases bring the different spellings of the same source or medium back to a single one: fb, facebook.com, Facebook → facebook; e-mail, mail, newsletter, courriel → email;
• each value is cut to 150 characters.

The initial aliases cover the common spellings (Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google, Bing, e-mail). An administrator extends them in Administration › Settings › Channels.

So ?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Social and ?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=social give the same source, facebook, the same medium, and the same channel, Organic Social.

The visit and its campaign

As in GA:

• the source, medium, campaign and channel of a visit are those of its first page view;
• a new campaign starts a new visit: a page view that arrives with different campaign parameters, or from another external referring site, ends the visit;
• a visit with neither source nor referrer is direct: source (direct), medium (none).

Without parameters, the referring site provides the source: a known search engine gives the medium organic, any other site referral. The list of known referring sites (search engines, social networks, video, shopping, messaging) and their category can be extended in the Settings.

Channels

The channel of a visit is computed by ordered rules: the first one that applies wins. The initial rules follow GA4’s Default Channel Group:

Direct, Cross-network, Paid Shopping, Paid Search, Paid Social, Paid Video, Display, Paid Other, Organic Shopping, Organic Social, Organic Video, Organic Search, Referral, Email, Affiliates, Audio, SMS, Mobile Push Notifications, and Unassigned for whatever falls into none of them.

The application ships these rules with French names; rename them in the channel settings if you prefer.

A rule combines the category of the source (search engine, social network, video, shopping, messaging), a regular expression on the medium and on the campaign, and the click identifier. An administrator edits, reorders and tests them (“newsletter / E-mail would give Email”) in Administration › Settings › Channels.

A changed rule applies to the past

Channels are not written into the raw data: the views compute them at read time, through a function generated from the rules. Fixing a rule also fixes past months.

The analytics.channels view gives the list of channels in rule order, to sort dashboard legends.

The link builder

The site’s Installation tab offers a campaign link builder: the destination address, the parameters, the sources and mediums already seen on the site, the recommended lowercasing, then the link to copy and the channel it will give.

https://maison-arvor.fr/automne?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=automne-2026
→ source newsletter · medium email · channel Email

Checking

The Verification tab counts the visits of the last 24 hours classified as Unassigned, and lists the source / medium pairs that fall there: enough to fix a badly tagged campaign, or to add an alias.